WTF?! Sony's recently unveiled Xperia 1 VIII has some elements you wouldn't expect to see on a flagship phone, including a headphone jack, thick bezels, and a microSD slot. What it does have is AI, of course, though judging by its AI Camera Assistant comparison images, dropping the tech would have been a good idea. The "after" photos are so bad that Nothing CEO Carl Pei thinks the post is "engagement farming."

Sony was quick to show off the abilities of its new AI Camera Assistant with Xperia Intelligence following the reveal of the Xperia 1 VIII this week.

Sadly for Sony, the after photos looked quite atrocious next to the originals. They're vastly overexposed, with washed-out contrast, lost detail, less realism, and an overprocessed HDR look. The after image of the sandwich compared to the original is especially bad.

Nothing CEO Carl Pei jumped on rival Sony's misfortune, reposting the photos and questioning whether it was engagement farming on the Japanese giant's part.

There has been plenty of mockery from other users, along with a lot of complaints about how this proves AI can often make images much, much worse.

There are a few explanations here. Perhaps Pei is correct and Sony really is just trolling people to increase engagement. If that's the case, it seems to have worked, but making your new and very expensive (equivalent to $1,743 in the EU) phone look bad seems like a weird marketing ploy.

Another explanation, which does seem more plausible, is that Sony somehow managed to mislabel the before and after images, switching them around. But that raises the question: why hasn't Sony already deleted the post and explained its mistake? Update: They have tweeted an explanation this morning, see below.

Sony's explanation is that happens when you run your images through the AI Camera Assistant, it shows you four enhancement options. If that's the case, the good news is that it's an optional feature that can be disabled.

Beyond what seems to be a drunk camera AI tool, the Xperia 1 VIII features a 6.5-inch LTPO AMOLED display with a 2,340 × 1,080 resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection.